


Mirrors of Númenor

by Grayswandir (dostoevskysmouse)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2004-05-13
Updated: 2007-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-14 20:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17515556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dostoevskysmouse/pseuds/Grayswandir
Summary: Gondor: 2962. A young Denethor meets Aragorn for the first time, and finds in him an equal, an ideal, and a rival.  (WIP)





	1. A Fleet With Black Sails

Up the windowless stair toward the high vaulted summit of the White Tower Denethor climbed, his sword clicking sharply against his armor with each step, the heavy fall of his black boots ringing. His lantern swung wildly on its chain, and in its flashing glow the stairs seemed to leap up before him and fall back in sudden lurches. But he was not looking at the stairs. In his mind, Denethor's gaze was still fixed upon the limp body of Faramir which had been brought to him, ashen and haggard in the arms of Prince Imrahil, with drops of dark blood falling from his cloak onto the white stones.

_Your son has returned_ , Imrahil had said _. Your son has returned, lord, after great deeds._

And now over and over in his mind Denethor looked down at Faramir's pale face, and brushed his hair from his eyes, and felt the feverish heat of his skin; and over and over Faramir moaned through his livid, wind-burned lips, and Denethor's knuckles went white around his staff as he turned away.

_Your son has returned._

At the head of the stairs, Denethor slowed. He unhooked his keys from the chain at his belt, and they jingled against his mail and dimly glittered. His hands were shaking. He glanced back down the shadowed stairway, unlocked the door, and passed inside. Behind him, the door swung closed.

Warily he stepped into the circle of the chamber. It was cold, and at that great height the wind beat fiercely upon the tower, shrieking through the narrow windows so that the very stone seemed to shudder. The lantern tossed its pale illumination out against the walls and sputtered as Denethor set it on the floor. He walked to the center of the room. On a marble pedestal there, a dark mantle was draped, which he pulled away. The palantír of Anárion sat black and empty, sunk heavily upon its cushion: it flickered only dimly with the suggestion of a flame at its core. Denethor stared at it, then turned and looked out to the fields far below and away, already black with armies from Mordor. Rohan had not come. The Arrow had failed. Osgiliath and the Pelennor were taken.

_After great deeds._

_My lord, your son has returned._

Shuddering, Denethor clamped his hands around the palantír, and the sound of the wind died in his ears. The chamber walls seemed to close about him in shadow, and the cold fled, and for a moment there was nothing in the world to him but a faint flickering light in the darkness. The reflection of starlight upon the Anduin.

At length, he heard the rush of deep water, and saw the silhouettes of strange ships cutting through the waves; and he saw emblazoned on their black sails the Red Eye of Sauron. But when his thought turned to the bow of the foremost ship, his breath caught, and he stared: for the figure who rode there was no captain of any host from Mordor, nor of Umbar or Harad. He was a man of fair and handsome mien, tall and pale, with a stern glance and sharp eyes. A child of Númenor. Denethor remembered him, though he had not seen his face in more than thirty years.

And Imrahil in Denethor's mind, still holding Faramir, moved his lips:

_The King has returned._

_My lord..._

His white hands trembling upon the palantír, Denethor struggled, quivering, and wrenched his thought back into focus so that the ships returned. He stared at them for a long while in mingled fury and amaze, and at their captain, and at the Star of Elendil bound about his brow. Then suddenly, softly, he laughed.

"Is this then the hope I am proffered?" he asked, and the walls of the chamber flickered in his view. "The heir of Elendil come forth at last? In no little irony do you sail to me upon the ships of my enemies, Thorongil, for long have I counted you among them. But you have come too late. There will be no crown for you in Gondor."

The dark ships moved steadily, and Aragorn at their head gazed forward to the horizon. There were several figures behind him, Rangers and Elves for the most, and yet he had the look of one who knows he is alone. A silent doubt was in his eyes. Although the long years had worn but few marks of age into his sharp, proud features, a change had nevertheless been wrought in him, and Denethor saw it: the days of his rash youth were past, and he seemed more patient now, but wearier; less fiery, though perhaps slower to burn. He seemed tired. Perhaps it should have been a satisfaction to Denethor, to see that a part of Aragorn, too, had grown old; and he told himself that it was. But his smile when he traced the strands of silver in Aragorn's rough beard bespoke more desperation than triumph, and silently he lamented that the flame of ambition, which for so long he had hated and feared in Aragorn, seemed on the point of going out. But perhaps that was only a trick of the palantír.

_Your son, lord. Your son._

For a long while Denethor stared, and beneath the dust and bloodsmears of battle, beneath the hollow-eyed pallor of long sleepless nights clinging to a hopeless determination against fatality, he found that Aragorn looked much as he always had—and indeed much like Faramir, and Boromir, and even Denethor himself in his day. Pale mirrors of Númenor, they were all.

Yes; he remembered him perfectly. The high arch of his brow, the fall of his dark hair, his gray bright eyes. He had been young, and beautiful, and full of fire. And Ecthelion had loved him like a son.

_After great deeds, my lord._

_The King has returned._

The image of the dark ships dimmed and faded, and the sound of the water ran out into silence. Beyond the silence there came the low sliding ring of a sword being drawn from its sheath. Then there was sunlight at the windows of the hall of Ecthelion, and before the Steward's seat there knelt Aragorn with his blade in his hands. Gandalf was beside him. At Ecthelion's left stood Denethor, proud and cold, and barely past his thirty-first year. He was looking at Aragorn.

Denethor watched the memory in silence, and after a moment he began to believe he was looking through his own eyes, and not the eyes of the palantír—and he forgot about Faramir, and about all the sixty years that stood between this vision and the high windy chamber in the dark, under the shadow of Sauron. For the moment, there was neither jealousy nor rivalry about him, nor hate, nor war, but only his father and Gandalf and the guards, and Aragorn with his smooth skin and his black beard, and the oblivious statues of Isildur and Anárion between the pillars, looking down on them all with indifference.

"Hail Ecthelion, son of Turgon," Aragorn was saying, "Lord and Steward of Gondor. I am come to offer you aid and counsel, and to serve you as I may. Thorongil is my name."

And Denethor fell into the vision, believed it.


	2. The Eagle of the Star

"Hail, and rise, Thorongil," said Ecthelion, "for I need no signs of obeisance from you. Great praise precedes you. For some years now we have had tidings from King Thengel of your victories, and much would Gondor cherish such aid." Aragorn bowed, took up his sword, and rose; and Ecthelion turned his eyes to Gandalf. "I welcome you also, Mithrandir, for often have you rendered us fair counsel in dark times—and dark times there will be, I fear, now that the hand of Sauron has taken up new puppets and rekindled the fires of Orodruin."

"We have word that you are suffering heavy losses in South Gondor," said Gandalf.

"Yes. Our companies there are under constant siege. From hour to hour, it seems, the land is taken and lost and retaken, so that our messengers follow at one another's heels to bring us tidings already out of date."

"And have you no more strength to send?" asked Aragorn.

"We have. Minas Tirith is still well manned. Denethor sails three days hence with a fleet to the Crossings of Poros, which has been under fierce attack for several weeks now." Ecthelion glanced up briefly at his son, and Denethor bowed silently. His eyes were still on Aragorn.

"How great a fleet?" asked Gandalf.

"Fifteen large galleys and a score of smaller vessels. Near six thousand men, all told, with the rowers and marines. They should be more than enough to secure the waterways, at least for a time—though we hope to bring at least half of them back to the City as soon as we may, for we need them here also."

Gandalf nodded. "Good."

After a brief silence, Aragorn turned his gaze to Denethor. "Perhaps, my Lord Ecthelion, your son will not begrudge my company? I would like to view the state of affairs along the Poros firsthand."

"You are welcome to accompany him," said the Steward. "Indeed I expect he will be glad of it. Will you not, my son?"

Denethor bowed again. "I will. Though the Lord Thorongil will perhaps find the battle rougher there than he has seen in Rohan."

For an instant Aragorn met Denethor's eyes, and the corners of his mouth turned up a little as he nodded. "Perhaps he will." And casting back his heavy cloak, he slipped his sword back into its sheath.

As Ecthelion and his guests fell into talk about the battles that had passed in Gondor and Rohan, Denethor listened quietly from his place beside his father's chair, standing still and straight with his hand rested upon his swordhilt. He watched Aragorn doubtfully. The man was not what he had expected at all. To begin with, he was far too young, or at least he appeared so: even with his ample beard and rough hands he looked to have scarcely yet attained his twentieth year. A Ranger from the North, some guessed him, and after all, the Dúnedain were known to be a rugged people even in youth—but it seemed nevertheless impossible that a man of so few years could have risen so high in the esteem of kings and princes, so that even Thengel, in all his sturdy might and wisdom, had been loath to part with him. Perhaps, thought Denethor, it had something to do with the wizard.

But it was not only the wizard. There was something else.

Almost from Aragorn's first word Denethor had remarked it: a kind of lofty courage which was not the coarse courage of warriors; an ease of speech and dignity of bearing which said that this young wanderer, in his tarnished mail and muddied boots, was no stranger to the halls of great men. Whence did he come? No one knew, and in Rohan men had ceased to ask; in Gondor it seemed they would not even begin. They welcomed him as a strong captain, though he brought no company to command, and on the mystery of his provenance they reflected only lightly, almost indifferently, without foreboding.

Truth be told, Denethor himself found it difficult to muster any earnest foreboding against Aragorn; but still there was something about him—about his voice, about his eyes—which seemed to Denethor to pose a deep and weighty riddle. There was something about his North-kingdom blade, about the silver star pinned at the breast of his gray and fading cloak, which said more than it intended, if still not quite enough. Denethor did not trust him; and he guessed from the probing glances that fell upon him now and then that Aragorn knew it, and that it troubled him.

At length, when the afternoon began to wear away, Ecthelion bid his servants lead Gandalf and Aragorn to their lodgings, and provide them with whatever they might require. Aragorn bowed to the Steward before he went out, and he made a short bow to Denethor also, more sober than before. Denethor nodded again, but said nothing.

When the guests had gone and the hall was empty, Ecthelion turned in his great stone chair and looked at his son.

"You must be weary of standing," he said, and stretching he rose and took up his staff. He started down the hall, and Denethor followed him without answering. As they passed over the place where Aragorn and Gandalf had stood, Denethor slowed to look up at the statues, without quite knowing why. He paused thoughtfully, then moved forward to keep pace with his father.

Ecthelion glanced sideways at him. "You have been more than usually silent," he observed. He waited briefly for a reply, but seeing that none was forthcoming, he resumed, "Well, Denethor? Will you keep all your thoughts from me? You have been staring as if our Lord Thorongil were some trick of the light which would disappear with blinking. Is it only that there are fewer years on him than you had imagined?"

"There are remarkably few," said Denethor, frowning. "But he speaks as one who knows his business. We shall see how he fares on the Poros."

"We shall."

They had reached the end of the hall, and Ecthelion paused at the door. He seemed to hesitate, then turned back and regarded Denethor with a serious look. "Listen, my son. I bid you speak not patronizingly to the Lord Thorongil, as you are wont to do with unseasoned captains. You have heard the reports from Rohan, and unless they much exaggerate, it may well be that Thorongil knows combat quite as well as your finest men. Do not supervise him like some upstart youth."

Denethor's expression soured a little, and returned his father's gaze. "I am sure that my conduct will be sufficiently courteous, sire."

Ecthelion looked at him for a long moment, then turned back and opened the door. Denethor followed him out.


	3. First Impressions

At dawn on the third day following, the ships set out from the Harlond, their full sails billowing white against the pale skies. For a time the oarsmen were spared, for the course was downstream, and the wind was in their favor; but by mid morning the winds had changed, and the sails were stowed, and the rowers were obliged to take up their oars. The day was already growing hot, and many of the men on the upper decks had drawn their hoods up to shield them from the sun.

At the prow of the flagship stood Denethor, clad in polished iron mail and a leather surcoat, with his war horn on a baldric across his chest. He looked down the Anduin silently, eyes narrowed against the wind, and watched the sunlight flash and glitter over the waves ahead. Beside him, Aragorn too gazed into the distance, saying nothing, and scarcely moving except to shift his balance with the tilt of the deck. The ship swayed and lurched on the swift waters, but Aragorn's feet were steady, and his gaze was calm: he rode as one who has seen far rougher travel, with far graver destination. Denethor looked at him sometimes, and wondered.

"You have been much upon the water, Lord Thorongil?" he asked idly after a time, still looking out at the waves.

"I have commanded ships in the past, if that is your meaning, my lord."

"Have you indeed? In Rohan, I suppose. I have heard some tell of ships in Rohan, though her rivers seem little more than streams to us in Gondor."

"They are passable vessels," Aragorn said. "I have seen them. But I confess I have not sailed in Rohan."

Denethor turned to look at him with elevated brows, but Aragorn kept his gaze fixed upon the horizon, and nothing could be read in his expression.

"And with what people have you sailed, if not those of King Thengel?"

There was a pause before Aragorn answered.

"I think it will be best, my lord, if I do not say."

Denethor returned to the river with a dry smile. He removed one leather gauntlet and pulled his black hair back from his eyes as the wind picked up again. "There is much that you do not say, I mark, Thorongil. In sooth, since your arrival I have learned no more about you than that you have closer lips than Mithrandir himself."

Aragorn laughed a little. "It might seem so. But men are often better judged by their deeds than by their words."

"And their secrets? How shall I judge those?"

The ship pitched, and the two men steadied themselves against the bulwark.

"All silence does not proceed from secrecy," said Aragorn.

"Indeed not. Not all." Denethor regarded him with a penetrating glance. "Yet I think you will not ask me to believe that you have nothing to hide."

Aragorn answered with a slow shake of his head, then turned away again, and followed the paths of swooping gulls in the distance. Denethor watched him.

Something about Aragorn's expression had caught his eye: it was strange—grave and pensive, and too heavy for the smooth young features that wore it; like thunder crashing in a cloudless sky. Yet it bespoke nothing of tragedy, nor even of long years. Denethor could not place it.

"I suppose the Lord Ecthelion has not asked your age," he said.

Aragorn turned back with mild surprise. "My age? Is that what you would know?"

"I would. You are older than you look, I deem."

"Hardly younger than you, my lord."

There was a long, pregnant pause. At last Aragorn said:

"Thirty-one."

Denethor looked him over with a sober glance, then nodded slowly.

"I would know also whence you are come, and with what object. They say in Rohan that you decline all recompense for your aid; but I say a mercenary works not for charity. You have some stake in the affairs of the South—some stake which King Thengel has not yet divined." He saw Aragorn drop his gaze. "Has the Lord Ecthelion asked nothing of your past?"

"The Steward has put to me only pertinent questions," muttered Aragorn.

"And to his son you have rendered only impertinent answers."

Denethor drew up his hood and pulled his gauntlet over his hand again sharply. He leaned his hands upon the bulwark.

"Lord Thorongil," he said, rolling out the name with a sort of half-derisive courtesy, "let us be plain with one another, so far as we may. You are not as clever as you suppose, and your evasions, even were they subtler and better turned, would be in vain. Or do you imagine that I have failed to mark your bearing? You have the ragged look of a vagabond, perhaps, yet you are humbled neither by stewards nor by kings. There is some riddle there, which perhaps I shall guess at length, and perhaps not."

He bent and retrieved his canteen from a small satchel at his feet, continuing. "From King Thengel for these past five years, Gondor has heard your victories recounted as those of a mighty warrior. And yet you have the look almost of a youth, one scarcely ripe for his first battle." As he drank, he calculated the length of the pause, then eyed Aragorn steadily. "This much I have guessed, Thorongil: you are no mere counselor of Men. What more or what other you may be I cannot tell, and for now I will not ask. But let us not dissemble ignorance of one another's thoughts and suspicions. We are neither of us fools."

Aragorn returned Denethor's gaze carefully, seeming to search for something. Then he lowered his eyes.

"Forgive me, my lord. I have been as plain with you as necessity permits," he said. "I can say no more. It is not that I wish to deceive you; my secrecy comes of obligation and not by choice or design."

" _Obligation_." Denethor replaced the canteen in his bag. " _Necessity._ Abstract excuses, Captain; I need them not. Be silent, if you must otherwise be circuitous." His eyes flickered to Aragorn again, and his lips twitched into a fleeting smile. "At the least do not make apologies for your secrecy as if it chafed your will, even as you play upon it, the finest of harps. There is an allure in mystery and silence, to which I deem you are not wholly blind. You play your role too well for that.

"But come." Denethor turned back to the river. "I ask nothing further for now. A man holds not his fortune up to the light. You shall keep your secrets." He leaned again upon the bulwark and looked ahead. "Let us hope there is some good in them for Gondor."

He felt Aragorn's eyes on him a moment longer, and then heard him turn away. "Let us hope," Aragorn said.


	4. Arrival at the Crossings

They reached the river Poros at noon on the second day, and before midnight they had come within view of the Crossings, and of the small fleet of battered galleys which still held the river there, beyond the distant jutting fragments of the ruined bridge. Denethor bid the rowers pick up their speed, and the ships drew slowly closer. Along the northern shore, he could make out a few dim campfires burning where tents had been raised to shelter the wounded, but otherwise all was still. The only crewmen to be seen on the anchored ships were the watchmen who stood upon the turrets or the maintops, looking east. Then suddenly there came from the tower of one of the rearmost galleys an excited shout:

"Denethor! The Lord Denethor has arrived!"

Within moments the crews were roused, and men were cheering on the decks as Denethor's fleet passed among them. The raised swords of a few soldiers on the riverbank glimmered in the firelight. Smiling dimly, Denethor reached for one of the lines extending upward above him, and raised himself with one boot against the rigging on the bowsprit. With his free hand he placed his horn to his lips and sounded a long, resonant blow that seemed to echo in an endless ringing note. The shouting of the men redoubled.

When Denethor's flagship drew even with the largest of the moored galleys, it dropped anchor, and Denethor and Aragorn went down to the lower deck where the crewmen had laid out a plank. The captain who stood on the other ship held a lantern in his right hand; his left, Denethor saw, was bandaged about the wrist.

"Captain Denethor! You come sooner than we had hoped," the man called as Denethor crossed the gangway, also bearing a lantern. Aragorn followed behind him, and the wood creaked quietly under their boots. The deep water splashed in the dark below.

"We have had fair weather and favorable winds," said Denethor as he boarded, "and our oars are well manned." He clasped the captain's hand, then looked around at the bloodsmears on the deck and railings, and the furled sails, singed at the edges and tattered with small but numerous holes. Two short, black arrows were embedded high up on the mainmast, barely visible in the dark. "But how fare you here, Belegel? Your ships are fewer than I had counted upon."

"Yes. Our fleet is much reduced. We have held out tolerably well, but the battles grow worse, and of late they have been dearly won." The captain glanced back at his soldiers. "In numbers of men, we have yet the advantage, I think, and our archers are better skilled than those of the Southrons. But a ship is a wide target, and a flame wounds more men by striking wood than flesh. Much has been burned." After a pause, he said, "In the last battle the captain Malnor of Tolfalas was lost. His ship was overtaken and we reached him too late."

Denethor grimaced. "That is ill news. What of his company?"

"Devastated. Not more than fifty soldiers under his command survived, and most of those are badly wounded and can no longer fight. They would sail back to Tolfalas, had we any ships to lend." Belegel shook his head. "We still hold the Crossings, as you see, Captain; but even so, our men begin to dwindle."

"Let them be comforted, then," said Denethor. "They are increased by six thousands now."

"Six thousands," repeated Belegel warmly, clasping Denethor's shoulder and looking past him at the fleet. "We may need them. Our lookouts down the river send us word that the Haradrim have already set sail again, and in dangerous numbers. Likely they believe they have weakened us sufficiently that they shall be able to rout us with a single strong blow. And so perhaps they would have, if fortune had not sped you. But here you are!" He smiled. "We are saved."

Half returning the smile, Denethor disengaged himself from the captain's grasp and turned to Aragorn, who was looking quietly to the east.

"This is the captain Thorongil," said Denethor, touching Aragorn's arm. "No doubt that name is known to you already. Thorongil," he gestured, "the captain Belegel. He is the chief commander of these ships, after myself."

"A pleasure," said Aragorn, putting forth his hand. Belegel took it, and looked over the weather-beaten youth with evident misdoubt.

"Likewise, Captain," he said. "How goes the fighting in Rohan?"

"One could wish it no better," said Aragorn, turning away again and squinting into the night: "it has stopped, at least for a while."

"Stopped! Then the tide is turning, perhaps. And will Thengel send us men? or horses? Our messengers grow few."

"He has sent already what he can spare."

"Yes," Denethor interposed. "We are well supplied, Belegel, and you shall have more messengers. Belike they are already on their way. We have brought also a fresh stock of provisions which I believe my men are presently unloading: food and oil and weapons—mainly arrows to replace what have been spent or lost."

"Ah," said Belegel. "Forgive me, then. That is good." Raising his lantern, he observed, "The oil will serve us most; we have burned up all of ours. What we have left was seized from captured vessels. Thankfully, the Haradrim carry as much plain fish oil for light as pitch for arson. They sail always at night, which worried us for a while; but after all they are only men, it seems, and have eyes no better than ours, and lanterns no worse."

"Let us hope they make no attack on this night, at least," said Denethor. "I would have my men rest ere battle finds them."

Aragorn was still looking to the east. "I doubt there is any hope of that," he said.

Denethor and Belegel turned to look at him. "Your pardon?" said Belegel.

"There is movement on the horizon. I would venture a guess at its import: the enemy is here."

Belegel stepped forward and peered into the night. "The horizon is black as jet at this distance, Captain. Fear often plays such tricks upon the eyes, but they are dancing shadows."

"Be silent, Belegel," said Denethor. "He is not called Eagle for nothing." He put his hand on Aragorn's shoulder. "Well, Thorongil? What do you see?"

Aragorn shook his head. "It is too dark. The shapes are obscure." He was silent a moment, then said, "Yes. They are taking down their sails."

Just then a light flickered dimly on the horizon, and a cry rang out from the foretop above: "The Haradrim!"

At once, the fleet was all astir, the oarsmen running back to their banks on the lower decks, the archers climbing the towers. Some of the soldiers began ranging themselves behind the shields along the bulwarks, while others drew the anchors up. Denethor went back to the plank.

"For all our haste, we arrive not a moment too soon," he said to Belegel. "Put out all your fires until their ships are closer; give them no guess at our numbers until they have committed themselves to the fight."

"Yes, Captain."

Denethor crossed back to his ship and stayed a few minutes to inspect its arrangement, then returned to the bow. Aragorn was there waiting.

"I trust you have seen combat upon the water before," Denethor said, drawing his sword partway from its sheath and testing its edge with his thumb. A shallow groove sliced into the stiff leather of his gauntlet.

"I have."

Denethor slid the sword back into place. He could make out the enemy ships now, distant still, but advancing. The moonlight caught the shifting wet sheen of their moving oars, and the glint of armor on their decks.

"Those will be strong ships, by their look," said Denethor, grimacing. "But unless the night belies greater numbers than they seem, they will not long last against the force of Gondor. We shall suffer no great loss." He caught Aragorn's eyes with a strangely defiant look. "Men will fall, but like oil and arrows, they will be no more than the City can spare. So one reckons lives in war. Like oil and arrows."

Aragorn returned his gaze, but said nothing.

Moving away, Denethor regarded the rowers and drew his sword. "This night belongs to Gondor!" he said, and he thrust the blade toward the east. "Forward!"


	5. Battle on the Poros

"Make speed!" Denethor called back, bracing himself against the pitching of the galley with one hand on the ropes. The pull of ten score oarsmen pressed the flagship on against the waves, and dark water splashed up around the prow. "Forward! The enemy have not ships of glass to be shattered gently!"

"The current drives them against us," Aragorn called to him above the wind. "We need no greater speed to ram."

"You do not know these ships."

Denethor cast a glance ahead at the Haradrim fleet coursing rapidly toward them, then returned to the rowers long enough to shout:

"Bear right! For the foremost ship! Bear right!"

The Haradrim were lighting their firepots, he saw. Flint sparks flew in the dark.

On the tower of the forecastle, his archers had taken aim, and all at once the diving volley of their arrows glittered in the firelight like a sheet of swift rain over the enemy flagship. Almost at the same moment, a torrent of black darts whizzed down on them from above and bore into the deck planking. None found a mark.

"Take care!" said Denethor as his archers released a second battery of arrows. He pulled free one of the wooden shields from the bulwarks and held it up, and Aragorn, crouching with his sword ready, did likewise. Dark feathered bolts whistled past.

"Steady on! Prepare— _ah_ —" Denethor drew in a sharp breath as the point of an arrowhead split the mail along his right side and ripped a deep gash beneath his ribs. Hissing, he snatched the arrow out from his leather surcoat, which had caught it, and threw it down. Aragorn leaned next to him.

"Denethor—"

"Prepare to ram!"

The warning was almost too late: even as he finished it Denethor felt himself thrown forward in the furious shuddering smash of the brass ram driving into the enemy ship's hull, and for a moment his knees gave out and the shield was jarred from his hand. The crash of colliding waves below threw a cold spray up onto the deck. Already more arrows were flying. Before him, there was the smell of burning pitch.

"Denethor!" said Aragorn. "Are you wounded?"

"Nothing," murmured Denethor, rising with his shield already leveled against the oncoming Haradrim. He grabbed the ropes and pulled himself up onto the bowsprit. "Look not to me, but take the ship!" And unsheathing his blade again, he vaulted forward onto the deck of the wide dromon. Aragorn and the soldiers followed behind.

"Burn everything!" said Denethor. "Take nothing; we need no plunder."

Parts of the ship were already ablaze, for his archers had set their aim for the firepots and the men hurling burning missiles. Trails of flame now chased the leaking oil as it ran out over the planking. There were screams and splashes as men leapt from the fires into the water, but above the clatter of clashing swords and the relentless drum of arrows on the deck, Denethor barely heard them. He edged between the fires, hacking armor and thrusting into flesh, feeling the satisfying shudder of men's bodies as they fell. His shield jolted under the heavy blows of swords and maces. Around him, corpses littered the deck, and from them rose the acrid smell of scorching hair, of skin and dried leather charring in the flames. His sword was slicked with gore.

They were frightened; he could feel it. Even in the dark they had discerned the multitude of Gondor's ships, the battalions of fresh soldiers, the archers arrayed on the towers. Their blades hesitated, and Denethor struck them down.

It was many years now since he had balked at the slaying of men.

Close at hand, Aragorn too was swinging deftly against the Haradrim, but there was no time to stop and watch him. A troop of armored Southrons had run up to the main deck from below, and among them came their captain, tall and black-bearded, clad in plate mail and coarse leather, and wielding an iron-headed mace. He shouted his orders in the tongue of Harad, which Denethor did not know; but his meaning was easily guessed, for the efforts of his archers at once intensified.

Then the captain stepped up and swung, and Aragorn turned just in time to duck the blow. The heavy mace connected with the deck railing behind him, which broke and splintered. Thin shards of wood swirled up in the rising smoke.

More men were coming up. "Thorongil!" called Denethor; but Aragorn needed no warning: he had already spun around to meet the new attack. Meanwhile, the Southron captain turned to Denethor. He strode forward, mace ready. Denethor raised his blade.

When the captain struck at him, however, he leapt back; he could not deflect the mace, he knew; not without forfeiting an arm. He made a blind thrust, then dodged again, and found himself against the rail. For a moment, neither man moved. Then Denethor swung upward, and the mace blocked him; with his left hand he drew the short dagger from his belt and speared the captain's wrist. The mace dropped.

The captain pulled back with a curse, grasping left-handed for his saber, but too late. Denethor's sword found his throat, and split it wide.

The deck shook when he fell.

After a wary pause, Denethor bent and retrieved his dagger from the lifeless arm, then leaned a moment on the railing, breathing heavily. He felt dizzy. His side ached; the gash beneath his ribs was still bleeding.

Aragorn with his back to the mainmast still stove off the last onslaught of Haradrim in their glinting mail. Denethor watched them. It appeared that King Thengel had been right in his praise; Aragorn was not a man to be trifled with. His sword flashed and spun in his hands in effortless flying slashes, as though it might have been the weightless plaything of a child, and no massive broadsword of heavy steel. His thrust was sure, his step elegant, his mark precise. He had about him a bold but graceful strength that called to mind old songs of Elven warrior-kings, and tales of lost Númenor.

Lost Númenor.

A thought flickered hazily in Denethor's mind, and he grasped at it, but too soon it was gone.

The fire was spreading wildly.

"Fall back!" said Denethor, looking around for his soldiers. "Fall back! Let it burn!"

He ran back after his men to the flagship, and Aragorn behind him came last. All around, he saw, ships were beginning to catch fire, both galleys and dromons. The river was alight with them. Black arrows hummed through the skies like swooping dark birds.

At Denethor's command, the oarsmen disengaged the ram and pulled back, turning slowly against the rushing current. Suddenly there were shouts from the oarsmen on the starboard side, and the sharp ring of grappling irons hooking the bulwarks. Denethor turned to see a large dromon drawing up beside the ship. Glass bottles full of oil began to rain down and break against the deck and the towers, and a few lighted arrows set the spattered liquid burning.

"Captain!" called the man on the foretop. "We're being boarded!"

Denethor was already sounding his horn. Echoing horns called back in the dark.

Aragorn leapt down the stair to the lower deck, his sword drawn. After making a sign to the archers, Denethor turned to follow.

Then came a sudden sharp crack, as the breaking of bone, and a biting, sickening bolt of pain. Denethor dropped his shield. He collapsed back against the forecastle wall with a gasp, and looked down. An arrow had pierced his thigh.

His vision darkened, but he pushed himself urgently back to his feet, fighting down a wave of nausea. His sword slipped from his hand and clattered on the deck. A moment later, there were soldiers around him, supporting his arms and holding up their shields.

"Captain?" said one of the men, pressing his shoulder. "My lord?"

Denethor gritted his teeth. He drew himself back up against the wall.

"Bid the archers call again for aid," he commanded. "We are burning. We cannot smother those fires."

"A ship is on its way, my lord."

The galley gave a sudden lurch, and Denethor staggered and gasped again; the soldiers steadied him.

"My lord?"

"Look how pale he is..."

Denethor held still a moment, half bent and breathing shallowly, then slowly straightened himself once more.

"Give me my sword."

One of the soldiers bent down and retrieved it for him, and handed it over. Denethor took it. He planted its point against the deck and leaned on the hilt with shaking arms.

Below, he could see the fighting and the fires on the lower deck, and he observed that the dromon was burning also. In the distance, other ships were sailing eastward—the Haradrim turning back. A weak smile twisted his lips for an instant.

"My lord—you're bleeding—"

A few heavy red drops had reached the hem of his surcoat, streaming down from the split in his side. The thin garments beneath his mail were soaked through.

"Yes," he said. "I know."

Denethor supposed he must have lost more blood than he'd thought. The soldiers' voices now hummed only faintly in his ears, as from a great distance, and he could no longer feel their hands about him. His vision was dimming again.

The deep, biting throb of the arrow wound bore like a twisting blade into the muscles of his leg, and he could taste bile at the back of his throat.

"Lord Denethor?" said the soldiers. "My lord?"

"Here, put him down."

"No, the ship is coming. Get him up. Where is Thorongil?"

"He's there."

"My lord?"

Then came the pounding of boots on the deck, and the startled voice of Aragorn, panting for breath:

" _Elbereth_. What's happened here?"

The sound of planks coming down against the portside bulwarks. Aragorn closer.

"Denethor?"

That was the last he heard. He raised his eyes to look for the ship, and slowly his vision went black.


	6. Thorongil's Counsel

Some of what passed afterward Denethor half remembered when he woke—brief lucid moments on the ship that took his crew to shore, when he could hear distantly the screams of men and the ceaseless clashing of steel, and his own voice barking orders to be relayed to Belegel, and Aragorn in vain endeavoring to quiet him. He remembered a young soldier cutting away the fabric from his swollen leg; and he remembered Aragorn unfastening the clasps of his belt and baldric, and helping him out of his surcoat and his mail to bind a cloth against his side. Most of all he remembered Aragorn's expression upon seeing his white tunic soaked crimson with blood—a sober, solicitous look, at which Denethor had nearly laughed. Even his own father had never looked at him that way.

"It is not so bad," Denethor had tried to say; but his voice had failed, and whether Aragorn heard him above the din of the battle he did not know.

After that there was mostly haze and darkness. He seemed to recall that Aragorn had walked him down the boarding plank to shore, and he remembered being brusque and impatient with the medics while they cleaned his wounds. No doubt he had been conscious when they cut open his leg and extracted the arrow—it had struck the bone and could not be pushed through—but he remembered only dim flashes. Aragorn had kept a hand on his shoulder all the while.

He did remember the cauterizing iron. Red and glowing, they had brought it from the fire, and three men had been called to hold him still. He remembered clutching at the bloodied sheet beneath him and biting back screams, and he remembered the reek of sweat and burnt flesh afterward, and the taste of vomit as he turned his head and coughed up yellow bile. Then Aragorn had touched his brow and said something in Elvish, and it seemed somehow that the pain was less. Then darkness again.

When he woke, Denethor found himself in a low tent dimly lit, with a wooden board beneath him, flat and hard under thin folded woolen sheets, and a cloak pulled up around his chest. The sounds of battle had ceased, though the crackling of burning ships still roared in the distance, drowned somewhat by the less but nearer blaze of bonfires outside, the drone of men's voices, and the shuffling clutter of boots and mail. His wounds ached, but not badly, and there was a strange but pleasant scent about him, half-familiar—the incense of some aromatic herb, perhaps: some fond superstition of the healers. In the corner, a lantern burned.

He soon apprehended what had awakened him: there were voices at the door, speaking low, and in the midst of their conversation he had heard his name. Three figures appeared to be talking there; an old graybearded medic stood just at the threshold, and beyond him two lightly armored men cut black silhouettes against the firelight. One was a guard, and the other looked by his stance to be Aragorn.

"...soon, unless I am mistaken," Aragorn was saying. "Has he said nothing else?"

The old medic glanced back into the tent uncertainly. "Not to speak of, no. Now and then he demands news of the battle, but I doubt whether he understands my answers; I must have told him a dozen times that the Haradrim have retreated—what was left of them. Sometimes he asks for his sword, or for you, Captain, or for Belegel. He has been murmuring something about Elendil, too. But most of his words are without coherence."

"Elendil?" said Aragorn, and he could not quite keep the surprise from his voice.

"Among suchlike figures, yes."

There was a long silence. At last Aragorn said, "I would like to see him as soon as I may."

"Of course. I will send for you when he wakes."

"The captain Thorongil may see me presently," said Denethor. He moved to sit up, but felt the wound in his side begin to split, and with a grimace he lowered himself to the pillow again and pressed the bandage back down.

"Lord Denethor," said the medic, hastening to his side. Aragorn followed him into the tent, but stayed at the door and closed the flap behind him.

The old man had knelt and produced a pitcher from behind the cot, and was pouring water out into a dented metal cup.

"How are your wounds, my lord?" he asked.

"Half healed already, I would almost say," replied Denethor, raising himself onto his elbows to accept the water. The medic watched him while he drank, seeming to await some elaboration on this answer, but Denethor did not offer any. He only added when he had finished, "I will commend the surgeons to the Lord Ecthelion on my return."

The medic took back the cup.

"I should tell you, my lord, that the head surgeon was elsewhere engaged when you were brought ashore, and could not be summoned. It was the Lord Thorongil who presided over your treatment. He insisted. He has been tending to some other officers as well."

Denethor moved his eyes back to Aragorn, neither surprised nor impressed. "Has he?" he said. But Aragorn was absorbed in the activity of crushing a handful of long leaves from his satchel into the chafing dish near the door, and did not seem to hear.

Meanwhile the medic had turned back Denethor's cloak to inspect his dressings. Denethor saw, looking down, that his leg was fixed with a splint on either side, tightly bound. There were thick bandages where the cauterizing iron had been applied.

"Is it broken?" he asked.

"Yes," said the medic. "But the break was clean. We may thank the Haradrim that they bear such sharp arrows; a duller point would have shattered the bone. It would have been much harder to mend."

He lifted the bandage a little to check for bleeding—and at that small movement, the spell of the incense was suddenly broken. Denethor felt the pain knife back into his thigh with violent, gouging force. He hissed in a sharp breath between his teeth, stiffening, and the medic quickly replaced the bandage and turned the cloak down again.

At last, Aragorn approached.

"I would like to speak with him alone, if you are finished."

The medic hesitated. "Well..."

"Perhaps," continued Aragorn, "you will do me the service to inform Belegel that the Lord Denethor will see him now."

"I... Yes, of course, Captain—if it is the wish of my lord..." He shot an anxious glance at Denethor, who had gone very pale; but Denethor nodded. Faltering a little, the medic bowed and went out.

Denethor lay still. The pain was already subsiding again to a manageable throb, but he had broken out in a sweat and feared that he might begin shivering, and he mistrusted his voice. Aragorn did not try to speak to him immediately. Instead he drew a short stool up beside the cot on the ground, pulled his pipe from his satchel, filled it, and struck a piece of flint until the pipeweed set to burning. He sat in the dark with his elbows on his knees, and he smoked.

Denethor saw that he had a bandage about the palm of one hand, from which the gauntlet was missing, and that his surcoat was slashed in several places, though the mail beneath it remained unbroken. Parts of his hair were singed at the ends, and there were dark smears on his face and clothes—pitch or blood, Denethor guessed. He looked tired, but he also looked strong. He looked ageless.

It was the pipe that did it. To Denethor's knowledge, none but Gandalf had ever smoked a pipe in Gondor, or indeed anywhere in the South, unless it were Saruman; and it was a marvel to him that those slow, pensive, wizard-gray coils should ascend also from Aragorn's young lips. At first Denethor considered that the pipe actually made Aragorn look younger, like a child hip-deep in the boots of his father—but at length he began to wonder whether there was not perhaps in Aragorn, wayworn youth though he seemed, some real element of the grave intensity of wizards.

"It is true what they say," Aragorn observed quietly, between puffs, when he judged that Denethor was ready to speak with him; "that the Stewards of Gondor have grown mightier than kings. You fight as well as Thengel, my lord. I would not wish to cross swords with you."

Denethor could not quite laugh, but he forced a shallow smile.

"Nor I with you." He fixed Aragorn with a pointed gaze and added, in tones of idle challenge: "You had expected less?"

"No," said Aragorn. He exhaled slowly, a pale and misty spiral in the lamplight. "No, Thengel's praise for you was very warm. By his account, you are a gifted archer as well."

"I am a son of Gondor," said Denethor. "What do you think?"

Aragorn laughed, deferring with a little bow and a motion of his pipe.

"And you, Thorongil? Can you draw a bow?"

"It is as you say, my lord," answered Aragorn, still smiling. "I am not called Eagle for nothing."

"No. Nor acclaimed in vain, I judge."

After a moment's thoughtful silence, Denethor spoke again. "It is many years since I have seen King Thengel. We have not battled together since I was very young, in the days of Turgon's rule. His praise for me is blind."

"But faithful nonetheless."

It was not without some resentment that Denethor added, "Gondor has scarcely had word from him in recent years."

"He has been much occupied with war. But he loves your father. And he still loves Minas Tirith almost as much as he loves Edoras; even now he still speaks the tongue of Gondor in his hall. His son Théoden seems to idolize you, albeit I gather he has never known you well."

"Théoden?" said Denethor, a little surprised. "No. I've seen him only twice since his father's coronation, and he was hardly big enough to lift a short sword with two hands then. I suppose he must be almost a man."

Aragorn drew on his pipe, seeming to reflect fondly on this endearing image of little Théoden struggling to heft a blade. He expired a hazy cloud.

"He is fourteen this year. And indeed more man than boy."

"Still young to fight," Denethor remarked.

"He might prove it otherwise, if his father would give him leave," said Aragorn, closing his eyes and settling himself more comfortably on the stool. "But his day will come."

After this, Aragorn fell silent again, and continued to smoke. Denethor waited, expecting him to resume, and more than once Aragorn opened his eyes and looked at Denethor as if he wanted to say something, but then he glanced to the door, bit the end of his pipe, and shut his eyes again.

Outside, the crackling of the fires was dying down, and a few twittering birdsongs mingled in among the various sounds of the camp. It would soon be dawn. Denethor was tired; it had been a long night, and his wounds were aching badly now.

"You have something on your mind, Thorongil," he said at last. "And whatever it may be, I would have you speak it. Surely you did not come here and drive away my medic, weary as you are, only that you might acquaint me more intimately with the domestic affairs of Rohan."

Glancing at the door again, Aragorn lowered his pipe.

"I am waiting for Belegel."

Denethor frowned, for he did not like the sound of that. He folded his hands.

"Then be some use to me, while you wait. What is the report on the battle?"

"The men are still being counted," said Aragorn.

"No matter. Belegel will supply me with those figures when they are prepared. How many ships have we lost?"

"Nine, with the flagship. And a dozen more will need repair before they sail again."

Denethor's frown deepened, but he nodded.

"Very well. It is more than I like. But the Haradrim are clever incendiaries; we have yet to divine all the tricks of their art, and I suspect some devilry in it." He waved his hand. "Say on. To what did we reduce their fleet?"

Belegel's voice spoke from the door.

"Less than twenty of their ships escaped, and of those, most were badly wrecked. I wager half will not make the trip back to Harad."

He stepped inside and shut the tent door at his back, and Aragorn stood up, laying his pipe aside, and regarding the captain with a glance less warm than before, if not quite chilly.

"I would have pursued them," Aragorn said to Denethor, "but Belegel forbade it."

"Captain Thorongil," returned Belegel, "it is not the policy of Gondor to hunt the doomed who would retreat, as a vulture pecking ruined flesh. We fight to defend; we do not chase the war."

"Belegel has acted on my orders," said Denethor. "We sail no further than the Crossings."

"But you know they will come again."

"It will be to their deaths, if they do. And ten ships more or less would have made no difference to that. Let them come." Denethor made a passive gesture. "Let them spend more of their ships, more of their men. We will leave the Crossings well fortified. They shall not get through."

"Not this year, perhaps," said Aragorn, kneeling down beside Denethor. "But it is not enough merely to weaken your enemies, my lord. Not now." He dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and touched Denethor's arm. "My Lord Denethor, hear me. You have at present the means to sail to Harad and destroy their fleets utterly, to leave their armies in ruin. I will sail with you. We will buy back peace in Gondor."

Denethor smiled slowly. "And what of Umbar?" he asked. "It is not from Harad only that our land is under threat. Would you have me leave the Crossings open to the whole South, that I might strike down one enemy?"

"With six thousand men, we shall easily take Umbar as well."

"But I do not have six thousand men to spare." Denethor turned his eyes to Belegel. "Fifteen hundred shall return to Minas Tirith along with the wounded and any weaponry which needs repair, provided the ships are sufficient; the rest are to remain here to guard the Crossings until Lord Ecthelion summons them back." When Belegel had made a note of this, Denethor returned to Aragorn. "That is all. I will not leave our borders ill-defended and spend my soldiery conquering dormant foes."

"Not dormant, my lord—"

Belegel interrupted: "Captain—"

"Not dormant," Aragorn repeated, more firmly, putting his back toward Belegel, who stopped short and crossed his arms. "Umbar grows stronger by the day. Harad will recover. New fleets will sail against you." Aragorn bent closer. "My lord, when will you have men enough to spare, if not now?"

But Denethor was unmoved.

"I have heard enough. You may ask Lord Ecthelion for his verdict on your request when we return, but for my part, I deny it. The defense of the City is strong, and I would keep it so. There is no foretelling from what quarter the Enemy will next strike; we must protect what lands we still hold, and think later of winning back what we have lost in the South. Where the war does not call, we do not send."

Aragorn opened his lips again in protest, but Denethor put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"No. You are brave, Thorongil, but foolhardy; and courage alone is a brittle blade."

There was silence, and Belegel, sensing his opportunity, stepped forward once more and brandished a roll of parchment. "Captain. The reports have been made. Everything is tallied. The messengers only await your word to ride out."

"Let me see them," said Denethor, sitting up with some discomfort and extending his hand. Belegel gave him the papers.

"You err, my lord," murmured Aragorn, rising. He gathered his pipe and returned it to his pack. "The time to strike is now. It is practically given to us; it would cost almost nothing."

"That you cannot promise," said Denethor. "Enough. We return to Minas Tirith in two weeks. No raids or sieges; no blind forays into evil lands." He squinted down at the papers in the feeble light, and beckoned for the lantern. "Next you would have us march on Mordor itself."

Aragorn had gone to the door, but he turned back and picked up the lantern, and he handed it to Belegel.

"Let us pray it will not come to that."


	7. The Upstream Return

For Denethor, the next two weeks seemed interminably long. He was resolved to personally oversee as much of the repair of the ships as he could, but it was several days before he could get around effectively on the staff which the healers had fashioned for him, and even then, he found it difficult to be on his feet for very long. Loss of blood had made him weak, and moreover the wound in his side exhibited a vexing tendency to break open at the slightest incautious movement: he could scarcely lift his right arm at all without drawing a fresh red stain to the surface of his bandages. The medics were constantly re-dressing him, advising him to go back to his tent, to lie still, to rest.

Of course, he heeded them as little as possible. There was work to be done.

Aragorn, meanwhile, had not breached the topic of sailing south again since the first night, nor had he presumed to counsel Denethor in any other way, in matters either of war or of medicine. Nevertheless, he kept as close a watch on Denethor as the medics did, and Denethor knew it. Sometimes, when both men were around the camp, and particularly when Denethor was beginning to tire or grow unsteady, he would feel Aragorn's eyes on him from a distance; and glancing up from his work he would catch Aragorn's gaze and hold it, as if to say: yes, I am aware of you. But Aragorn was never disconcerted, and kept watching him, all the same.

Aragorn was the first to notice when Denethor's fever set in. He had come to the tent at morning to ask what instructions Ecthelion had sent regarding the wounded men from Tolfalas, who were eager to return home. Denethor, pale and agitated, was already mostly dressed, and was sitting on the stool beside his cot, pulling on one of his boots.

"There were no instructions," he said, in reply to Aragorn's question. "But I doubt if you will find sufficient rowers willing to make the trip to Tolfalas, for it is long. Unless the wounded are very many, or their objections very great, I intend to bring them back to the City. Their journey home is no harder from there than from here. I will speak to them."

He had begun to draw up his laces, and he looked at Aragorn, then shot a glance toward his other boot, which lay on the ground. He could not bend his broken leg to put it on.

"You will have your answer much sooner," he remarked, "if you will assist me."

He might have called one of his attendants in, as he usually did, for such a menial request; but most of the camp aides were healers in training, and Denethor preferred to hold them off. He had admitted no one to his tent at all this morning, and had dressed by himself, even though to do so without disturbing his bandages had proven nearly impossible. The alternative had been to remain in bed, for he knew already what the medics would say. He could no longer disguise the fact that his wounds had gotten the better of him.

Still threading his laces, Denethor watched Aragorn's eyes. He could identify the precise moment when Aragorn noticed how badly his hands were shaking. Aragorn set the boot aside and stood.

"Never mind, Thorongil," said Denethor, but he didn't resist when Aragorn stepped next to him and pushed his sweat-slicked hair back from his brow. He merely assumed a patient expression, as if humoring a childish whim. Aragorn's palm felt very cool.

"Never mind," he said again. "I have been through this business before. It will pass."

Aragorn wiped his hand off on his tunic and knelt down again. "Perhaps," he said, reaching to lift Denethor's shirt and check the bandage around his side; "and perhaps not, if you continue in this manner."

But Denethor stopped him, brushing his hand away sharply as if repulsing some brash affront or indecency. "That is enough," he said. Aragorn did not move.

"My lord, you put yourself needlessly at risk. It is not wise."

"I will decide what is wise, Lord Thorongil," answered Denethor, returning to his boot. "And I will decide what is needed."

He finished knotting the laces and added: "You will say nothing to the healers. I have enough trouble from them as it is, and the work will go faster without their interference. The repairs are nearly finished."

"Then why not leave the rest to Belegel?" asked Aragorn.

Denethor turned back impatiently.

"How do you think it looks, Thorongil," he said, "for the Captain-General of the Steward's host to take to his bed for a little graze like this?" He indicated the wound in his side, but was careful not to touch it. "Perhaps a common soldier may have the luxury to abandon his duties after the first arrow finds him, and then, on other occasions, perhaps he may not. As for myself, I am in charge of an army—Gondor's army, the greatest army left to Men. I cannot afford luxuries, whether great or small, lest my country and my people fall to doubt. That is something I expected you, at least, to understand."

Aragorn hesitated.

At length, sighing, he picked up Denethor's remaining boot and set to lacing it.

"How long until we sail?" he said.

"Five days."

As Aragorn finished the knot, Denethor picked up his staff. He allowed Aragorn to help him to his feet.

"Be easy," he said. "Five days are not long." And clapping Aragorn on the back, he added, "I am stronger than you deem."

But the second week was harder on Denethor than the first, and by the end of it he was in no condition for commanding a fleet of ships, nor in any case did it seem prudent for him to move about too much on the deck with his splinted leg. Aragorn offered to take up the command, and to this offer Denethor acceded without much resistance. After all, his men had been up and down the river many times; if Denethor had any reservations about leaving the ships in unaccustomed hands, it was only for reasons of appearance. Aragorn could not possibly have done much harm.

Aragorn, however, seemed pleased by this advancement, as though it signified the collapse of some barrier that had stood between them. And Denethor supposed that it did. He was not a trusting man, yet he trusted Aragorn. By this small concession, he had let Aragorn know it.

Before the ships departed, Belegel came to Denethor and clasped his hand.

"Send your father our regards," he said; and then with a laugh: "and send a fond word to my wife, if she has not forgotten me."

"If she has forgotten anything," answered Denethor, only half in jest, "it is that I am a busy man and cannot always be called upon to deliver tidings from her husband. But I will say what I can to her when I have the time."

He then went up with Aragorn to the flagship and betook himself to the chair that had been set out for him on the deck, and they sailed.

It was near four days back to Minas Tirith. The galleys were heavily burdened with men, many of whom were wounded, even among the rowers; and the current of Anduin was against them now. For four days Denethor sat restlessly in his deck chair, sometimes listening to Aragorn's accounts of the war in Rohan, but more often in silence, feeling the stiffness of his joints and the uncomfortable constriction of his bandages, and the dull tug of nausea which was occasioned principally by his fever, but little helped by the tossing of the galley. By the time they at last reached the Harlond he was almost delirious, but all the same he permitted his men only a short time for rest before the march back to the City. He felt wretched, and was anxious to get home.

The three-mile journey on horseback proved almost too much for him, and it was only by sheer will of stubborn pride that he managed to put on a triumphant face for the crowds upon arriving at the Gate. The pain in his leg with each jolt of hooves was nearly blinding, and on the stone pavement within the City it was worse. But he drew himself straight in his saddle and rode up through the streets at a canter, stern and unflinching, with all the expected loftiness of a returning victor. He even dismounted at the gate of the Citadel without overmuch assistance, though he supposed he must have been very pale, for the guards eyed him anxiously and seemed to doubt the adequacy of his walking stick to support him.

He went alone with Aragorn into the long, empty outer hall of the Tower of Ecthelion. The distance to the inner door seemed endless. Aragorn followed behind him, slowly, careful not to rush or overtake him, but all the same, Denethor felt pressed. At last, a few paces before the door, he stopped a moment to catch his breath.

Behind him there came a little shifting jingle of buckles being unclasped, and then Aragorn stepped closer, hesitantly this time, his right hand bare of its gauntlet. He began to murmur words in Elvish, reaching up; but Denethor caught his wrist.

"No." He pushed Aragorn away weakly and grasped his staff again. Summoning what remained of his strength, he drew himself up. "This must cease, Thorongil," he said. "In the tents of the healers you may do as you please, but I will not have you following after me with chants and herbs in my own city, like the watchful attendant of some broken man. I am weary," he confessed, "but that is a natural consequence of war—and not one for which I am unequal, I think you will find."

Aragorn had already resumed his gauntlet. He seemed to understand.

"I meant no offense, my lord."

"And none was taken."

Denethor again adjusted his grip on his staff and moved forward, but after a step he paused, turning back to Aragorn with a wry, conspiratorial smile.

"Besides," he said, "this is the Hall of my father—and however high may be the Steward's call for dignity and endurance, he would be a callous lord indeed who should refuse his enfeebled son a chair."

Ecthelion did not, in fact, offer Denethor a chair; but he kept him only briefly, and, seeing his condition, sent him off to the Houses of Healing with one of the servants. There was little for Denethor to tell him that had not already been communicated through messengers from the Poros anyway—and Ecthelion had other business to attend to.

To begin with, he wanted to talk to Aragorn.


	8. Rekindled Fires

The gardens of the Houses of Healing looked out to the east—a testament to their antiquity, for at the time of their construction the expanse in view had belonged to Gondor for many leagues, far past the shores of Anduin, and even in the Black Land beyond what was now Minas Morgul there had been no shadow. There was a shadow now, a gray and distant pall behind the mountains, and Denethor remarked it grimly as he stood looking out from the wall, leaning against his staff. Every year, the east grew darker. Night was coming on, one decade at a time.

Denethor found it hard to remember how the sky had looked over the Ephel Duath before the shadow had descended, although that time was not long past. He had never given much thought to skies or sunrises back in Turgon's days, not even after the rebuilding of Barad-dûr—not until the night, eight years ago now, when a distant blast like thunder had set the whole City to shaking, and Denethor's attendants had rushed him from his chamber through the frenzy of panicked guards and soldiers still half in their nightclothes, to the walls of the Citadel, to look east—where on the black horizon it had seemed a sun as red as blood was rising many hours too soon.

"Mount Orodruin," Ecthelion had whispered beside him. "It burns again—the first fire in three thousand years."

It was the only time Denethor had ever seen his father afraid, and in that hour the old man had visibly trembled. He had taken Denethor's hand, as if for a moment in his mind Denethor had still been a child; and it was this reflexive paternal gesture, so unlike Ecthelion, which even more than the gouting flames of Mordor had chilled Denethor's blood.

Ecthelion at that time had been Steward for less than a year, and perhaps little better than Denethor had he understood to what a perilous lordship he was acceding—to what a perilous lordship his son must one day accede. So far as Denethor remembered, it was the last time his father had ever demonstrated more than a perfunctory kind of awareness of him; but it was not an occasion to be remembered fondly. That night the world had seemed on the precipice of ruin. The soldiers had stood by one another and tried to look brave, but Denethor was sure he had not been the only man to wonder whether dawn would come.

Now, eight years later, it was difficult to imagine that the mountain had not always burned away in the east, pouring its black smoke out over Mordor. The ground no longer shook, and at night there came no fiery flashes on the horizon, no more spouting up of the red gore of the earth; but day by day, the sunrises dimmed. Perhaps some patients in the Houses of Healing found themselves too preoccupied with their own afflictions to think much about the shadow of Orodruin, or the fate of Men; but Denethor was not one of these. For eight years, he had thought of nothing else. He had no fate other than the fate of Men.

On the wall of the City, Denethor moved his eyes along the horizon, and shifted the weight on his staff. He heard the stony click of footsteps approaching behind him, but said nothing.

"Lord Denethor."

There was a silence as the servant waited for some answer, but receiving none, he continued.

"My lord, the board is being set for you in your room."

Denethor nodded. "Very well."

"Also, my lord, you have a visitor. The Lord Thorongil."

Denethor turned his head to find Aragorn standing a few paces behind the servant, looking somehow as rough and travel-worn as ever, even though his garments had been repaired and his old boots polished. Aragorn bent his head in the same dutiful bow he had exchanged with Denethor on their first meeting, now nearly a month past; but there was a glimmer in his eyes that seemed to hope they were something more than mere allies now—comrades, perhaps, or even friends. Denethor looked him over without a word. He said to the servant:

"In that case, see that there is enough at the table for two."

"Certainly, my lord."

As the servant hurried away, Denethor turned his back upon the eastern shadow and moved to descend the short stone steps from the City wall. He walked slowly, but he was steady on his walking stick. Aragorn came forward to meet him as he alighted.

"My lord," said Aragorn warmly. "They tell me you are recovering well. And they speak the truth, I see."

"Did you doubt it?" Denethor motioned in the direction of his room, and Aragorn kept pace beside him as he walked. "Seldom do these Houses fail of their purpose, unless men lose courage. I have been here overlong already. I will return to the Tower tomorrow."

"That is sooner than I expected. You have the Warden's leave?"

"His  _leave_? My lord, the Captain of the White Tower is not made a prisoner in his own city. I will come and go as I choose, and to go the sooner is as much my duty as my prerogative. The war stays not for the wounded, and I will have pressing business ere long. Men are wanted on Cair Andros, Ecthelion tells me."

Aragorn looked at him. "Surely... you do not intend to go yourself?"

Denethor uttered a short laugh.

"Bandaged, and bent upon a staff?" He shook his head, clicking along the stones with a kind of mocking emphasis. "No. I shall not go. It would do more harm than good, as any half-witted fool could divine. But now I see that you, too, no less than my father, expect some senseless flailing of pride from me: for I have had the same question from his messengers." He stopped and regarded Aragorn sharply as they came to the door of his room. "Do I seem vain to you?"

"No." Aragorn's expression was unreadable. "Not vain."

Denethor held his gaze for a beat, then turned and went inside.

The room he had been provided in the Houses was smaller than his accustomed quarters, but much more comfortable than those afforded to common soldiers and townspeople. The furnishings and draperies were elegant, the sun was bright at the wide windows, and there was little to suggest that this was a place for sick or wounded men, save perhaps its immaculate neatness, and the faintly lingering smell of herbs and unguents. The table was already spread, and a second set of dishes had been brought for Aragorn; the servants were just pouring wine into the goblets. Denethor dismissed them.

For a moment he did not speak, but looked in traditional silence through the broad western window, where beyond the houses and high walls Mount Mindolluin loomed, snow-capped and gleaming. Aragorn, beside him, looked too.

To be as firm and cold and high as those white cliffs: that was vanity. The vice of kings.

Denethor set his staff against the wall as he took his seat.

He said, "I suppose you had some purpose for this visit, Lord Thorongil."

"I had, but I fear it may disappoint you," answered Aragorn, moving to take the other chair. "I merely came to see for myself that you were well. The healers assured me that you were, but the Warden would not allow visitors before this morning. I gathered that the Lord Ecthelion himself had heard little from you this past week."

"Perhaps he has  _heard_  little," rejoined Denethor, "but if so, that has been through no omission on my part. It is the privilege of stewards no less than of kings to take or leave the preferred advice of their captains, or their sons."

He spoke without apparent bitterness, but Aragorn, studying him a moment, seemed to begin to understand. He said:

"You know your father has all confidence in you."

"He has confidence in me," Denethor agreed impassively. "But not all—and at times not enough."

"My lord, your place and title are the highest in Minas Tirith, bar the Steward's. What more could you desire?"

"With  _titles_  I am replete," said Denethor. "But confidence inheres not in titles. Nor were mine given lightly."

He picked up his goblet, not looking at Aragorn.

"You may not know it, but at two and thirty years I am very young to have gained the rank of High Warden to the White Tower—and already I have held that position for half a decade. My father was past forty before Lord Turgon granted him the same distinction. I, however, was not prepared to wait. There are strong captains in Gondor, and wise, but none whom I would suffer to direct the fate of the City. To that commission I trusted only myself."

"It seems to me that you ask a great deal," observed Aragorn, drinking thoughtfully.

"Does it."

"To be trusted unequivocally—and yet trust none yourself."

"It is in my heart to trust all men," said Denethor, spearing a wedge of steak on his knife. "But these are evil times, Thorongil, and trust must be won. Even to me the Lord Ecthelion would grant no high command until I had well earned it. And earn it I did," he added pointedly, gesturing, "in a short time but with much toil. Four years of hard campaigns in South Ithilien, in the East, on the very doorstep of Mordor. In those days our army still held much of the land of Ithilien, though it was deserted. And for four years we defended it, against what paralyzing odds I shall not indulge to describe to you. If Ithilien still grows green, it is only because it was well watered, not to say deluged with the blood of Uruks and Easterlings. It was by that I earned my rank.

"And yet," he went on, "perhaps because in his eyes I am still young, I have less rein under Ecthelion's hands than my titles would imply."

He watched Aragorn's face, seeking to read something there; but Aragorn went on eating, and did not raise his eyes.

Denethor had misspoken. It was not his youth, but his pride and willfulness that his father mistrusted; and he knew this. Numerous though his victories were, they had failed to win him Ecthelion's faith—to prove that what seemed insolence and defiance in him was really courage; for he always did what was necessary, what was best, even against Ecthelion's will.

The Steward made no secret of his displeasure on this point. Rewards and promotions came to Denethor as they came to any other captain: impersonally, as commendations from  _the Lord of the City_ , a title rather than a man. But the rebukes, the charges of insubordination, of arrogance, of selfishness—those were personal enough. They came from his father.

Selfishness indeed! As if there could be no labor but for greed—after all, what had  _he_  to gain in this war? He was heir to the Stewardship already, and here for the sake of his people he risked his accession again and again, to say nothing of his life. And this was selfishness! Insolence! As if it were for his own satisfaction that he marched on the eastern shadows! As if he had not seen enough of bloodshed in thirty years! He was proud, for he could not be otherwise; he was unyielding, but never without reason. Must then his every distinction come hand in hand with a rebuke, as though his very triumphs were an act of willful spite?

It was true that Denethor was held in high esteem, by Ecthelion along with the rest; for he earned it. But he was never forgiven: and in spite of all the praise, that blame still seared him like a fire.

Aragorn said, "Is something wrong?"

Denethor had set down his knife. He resumed it, shaking his head, and returned to his food.

"No."

He had said too much.

In the barren silence, he carved at his steak uncomfortably. After all, perhaps Ecthelion was not altogether wrong about him, if this was his notion of fealty. For a son of the White City to challenge the wisdom and fair dealings of the Steward was indecorous, even crude; it did not become him. In Mordor flame: in Gondor grave aloofness, pride and ice. He had overstepped his place.

He was quieter, but not less stiff than usual when he said, "It may be that I have spoken carelessly in regard to the Lord Ecthelion. You will have to forgive the rash words of an impudent son."

Aragorn broke an easy smile. "I have heard much harsher reproaches from King Thengel's boy," he replied.

To be forgiven: it was as simple as that.

Denethor held on to Aragorn's smile without returning it. That steady earnestness, equally improbable on a face so young and under a bristled beard so ragged, still captivated him. He felt the warm strength of Aragorn's eyes, gray as his tired cloak, and yet aglitter: as bright as the star at his breast. And he remembered his hands—rough like blacksmith's hands, callused and worn with more than swordwork; and yet gentle as the hands of healers, at need.

Denethor was a stranger to friendship no less than to trust, and he understood affection only in principle. His father had never been gentle; it simply was not in his blood. His mother had been dead for thirty years. As for Denethor, he was as stern a captain as any, and in many ways had grown up harder and colder than even Ecthelion—but at the memory of Aragorn's touch he felt a kindling warmth, and it was only with a concentrated effort that he shook himself free of it, picked up his goblet again, and looked away.

After another silence, he said:

"You have taken counsel with the Steward yourself, I suppose?"

"I have spoken with him," answered Aragorn lightly. "But there has been little time to discuss the matters of Harad and the Crossings, since these new raids on Cair Andros began. And with Mithrandir soon departing, the Lord has been keeping counsel with him almost nightly. I have seen neither of them as much as I would have liked, since our return."

"Mithrandir is leaving? He is not one to tarry, I see," murmured Denethor. "I take it, then, that you will not be accompanying him."

"No. For my own part, I intend to remain in these lands for as long as my services are needed, or until they are no longer desired."

A cool mockery soured the smile that came unbidden to Denethor's lips. "It will be well, then, for you to make yourself comfortable in the City—for Gondor, I predict, will receive gladly whatever aid or service the North can send, for many decades to come; unless by some miracle the West should suddenly triumph."

Aragorn set his goblet down slowly. With a strange, cautious seriousness, he said:

"And what miracle would you ask, to that end?"

Denethor did not quite laugh. "I am not a man given to fancy, Lord Thorongil; but if you desire an answer, I am in no position to be particular. An army to rival Sauron's would suffice," he said. "But what miracle would I not ask? Perhaps the orcs might turn their blades against one another; or the sea might rise up and swallow the corsairs of the South. Or the Mountain might burst and engulf the Black Land in fire and ash: that, to my mind, would duly serve both civil and poetic justice."

Aragorn listened, and waited; but this was the end of Denethor's reply.

Denethor said, still mocking, "And you? I would almost say it seems I had disappointed you—as if the miracles I've named were not among those you feel adequate to effect."

The silence stretched out between them. Aragorn leaned back in his chair and pulled his pipe from the pouch at his hip.

"No," he said at length, sifting his pipeweed with a melancholy look. "Would that I did have some miracle to bring. But I have none. I bring only hope."

The sunlight flooding from the window penetrated his youthful façade, found out the broken seams and the rough stitchwork of his cloak, the white scars on his hands: shifting shadows as his fingers moved.

Denethor could not catch Aragorn's eyes as he wanted to when he said, "Then you are welcome here."

"My lord," answered Aragorn respectfully. He did not look up, but went on filling his pipe.

Denethor leaned forward on the table. "The West  _will_  triumph, Lord Thorongil," he said. "Gondor will see to that. On hope alone, our people have subsisted since the failing of the kings, and even the withering of the tree could not vanquish it. The shadow  _will_  pass, and Men will prevail."

At last Aragorn raised his eyes, and he tried for another smile.

"Yes," he said. "I know."

But there seemed to be a confession on his lips behind that  _yes_ ; an apology; a doubt: and for an instant Denethor knew something, felt something, and his trust wavered, a delicate fluttering thing in his breast. But what exactly he knew, or what exactly he felt, he could not have articulated.

Aragorn stood.

"I am afraid I must take my leave, Lord Denethor, with your permission. I have enjoyed the privilege of your company." He bent an earnest bow, pipe still in hand.

Denethor, watching him, felt an indefinite pang; but he said merely, "Likewise, Captain, though I find your leave-taking curiously abrupt. You return to the Tower?"

"Yes."

"Then tell the Steward, if you have occasion to speak with him, that he should expect me tomorrow morning."

"I will," said Aragorn. "My lord."

Three strides, unhurried: and the door closed behind him.

Denethor remained alone at the sun-streaked table, too much aware of the hot quickened pulse of his blood: a new fever which had nothing to do with his wounds. He could not place the feeling, the unaccustomed ache, the sudden hollow space in his chest, any more than he could place the man Thorongil; he had known neither before; yet some part of him recognized them both.

He looked to the window again, and for the first time he wondered if, beneath the heavy frost, the deep years of ice, Mount Mindolluin too roiled and burned.


	9. Cair Andros

The sun had not yet risen when Denethor returned to the Tower the following morning, but in the predawn lamplight of the Hall of Ecthelion he found his father already in conference with Aragorn and Gandalf. A seat awaited him at the table, and yet it seemed that although he had been expected, his arrival was not altogether welcome. Ecthelion shot him a glance of premonitory sternness as he sat down, and Gandalf watched him silently. Even Aragorn's manner seemed subdued by a mild apprehension. It was clear that they had been talking together for some time already.

"We were about to discuss the matter of Cair Andros," said Ecthelion, pushing a scroll of parchment to his son across the table. It was a message from the island: a report of losses, and an urgent plea for reinforcements. It had come to the Tower the day before, and although Denethor had not read it himself, he had been appraised of its contents.

"It is only a matter of making arrangements," he said, returning the scroll. "Our men are ready. I will speak with the captains today."

"There is no need."

Denethor waited, and the Steward turned his eyes to Gandalf. "I have been many days in counsel with Mithrandir," he said, "and we have made our own arrangements. They are being carried out as we speak."

"You have sent reinforcements, sire?"

"I am sending them. A small fleet will sail out on the morrow; they are being loaded now, twenty light ships. I send Thorongil with them. He will deliver the soldiers to our captains already stationed there, and he will sail back with the last of the civilians. Any man not a soldier has been ordered to withdraw until Anduin's eastern shore can be secured again."

In the silence after the Steward had finished, Aragorn rubbed uncomfortably at his beard.

Denethor said quietly, "I see."

He was aware, of course, of the Steward's right to execute whatever commands he pleased without consulting his son; but as Captain-General of the Steward's army, Denethor felt he was owed some say as to whither his soldiers went, and who brought them there. In the old days Ecthelion had always shown him at least the courtesy, however nominal, of requesting his view on military matters before making a final decision. It was no greater courtesy than a commander of Denethor's rank deserved, or had the right to expect. To be denied it was almost an open affront.

And yet, looking at Aragorn, in whose shifting glance he seemed to read a silent apology, he found himself strangely dispassionate. He could not summon the bitterness he intended when he said, "So be it, then."

Ecthelion studied him cautiously. "Indeed. So it shall be."

There was much to be done on Cair Andros, and the meeting drew on for the greater part of an hour as Ecthelion reviewed the details, addressing Aragorn so exclusively as to put Denethor in a somewhat awkward position of superfluousness. Still he raised no objections. He was taciturn as ever, but he was passive, and neither the steely obduracy of his father's voice, nor the chill of his father's glance, bright and penetrating as a blade, ever quite struck home. At length, the dawn crept in at the windows. Pale bars of sun stretched out across the table, over the creased and oil-stained maps, flooding out the firelight until the single lantern stood like an island in its little flickering circle of gold. Ecthelion went on, instructing Aragorn with confidence, and Aragorn listened patiently, and nodded, and promised to serve the City to the best of his ability. Denethor watched him, with the whole realm of Gondor sprawling between them.

Now and then, the Steward turned a wary eye on his son, as if suspicious of some veiled mockery in his silence. But none was there; and this surprised Denethor most of all. It was not the first time his counsel had been passed over as if it were a mere matter of ceremony; on the contrary, his opinion seemed to count for less and less with each passing year, and Ecthelion must have known how this infuriated him. Some days it had almost seemed to Denethor that his father was deliberately provoking him—that he actually took some perverse pleasure in ruffling his son's stiff feathers, in watching his pride bristle. But if so, he was denied this pleasure today. Denethor did not bristle.

It was Gandalf who finally asked, when the meeting was drawing to a close: "Well, Lord Denethor, is there aught that you wished to add?"

"It would appear that you have seen to everything," Denethor answered. "But if it is not too late for such counsel, I believe we would be well advised to retain our archers for the present. If Umbar should attack from the South, we will have greater need of bowmen there than on Cair Andros."

"We have been well advised already," said Ecthelion. "The Lord Thorongil advanced similar considerations, and they have been addressed. Should Umbar strike, we will have archers enough to spare."

Denethor compressed his lips in a dry smile.

"Of course."

His father's provocation was indeed deliberate, and he perceived the reason for it now. In Ecthelion's estimation, it was not he, but Aragorn who had returned triumphant from the Poros; not he, but Aragorn who had borne back news from the war and delivered his soldiers' thanks. Some word of Aragorn's services as a healer had undoubtedly reached the Tower as well by now, and perhaps the Steward even believed that his son in some measure owed his life or his health to Aragorn's ministrations. The Eagle had swept up the glory of Gondor's victory—and upon Denethor were thrust only the losses.

Ecthelion had never had any patience for affliction, and it was not surprising that he should have held Denethor's injuries against him. Yet Denethor knew he had not been careless. His wounds had been worth their price. After all, it was not Aragorn, but he who had slain the Haradrim captain, who had taken the enemy flagship, who had ordered the course of the battle. Moreover, if anyone apart from Denethor deserved credit for Gondor's success, it still was not Aragorn, but Belegel; not Aragorn, but six thousand fresh soldiers and a fleet of well-manned ships. Ecthelion's regard was altogether misplaced.

Somehow, even this thought did not avail to anger Denethor. He was not jealous of Aragorn.

On the contrary, as he rose from the table and took up his staff to leave, he felt quietly smug, almost as if he had achieved some subtle triumph of which Ecthelion was unaware. He hardly felt that he had deferred at all.

And then, why should he not defer? Out of sheer stubborn contrariety, or a need for recognition? These would only have justified his father's distrust. He had no fair objection. The mission was in Aragorn's hands now, and although Denethor had not personally proposed the arrangement, he was satisfied with it. He trusted Aragorn.

He, who had trusted nothing in thirty-two years.

When Denethor departed from the Hall, Gandalf went with him. It was clear that the wizard had missed nothing of what had passed between father and son, and like Ecthelion, he seemed to regard Denethor's calm submission with some misgiving. Yet he said nothing at first. They went out through the great door and into the long, silent passageway beyond, and for a time, the slow clicking of their two staffs against the hard white stones was the only sound between them.

It was Denethor's belief that Gandalf had never trusted him. As a young man, in the days when Saruman had made his residence in the City, Denethor had sometimes overheard his name whispered in the furtive conversations of the wizards, and rarely had they spoken of him well. They spoke of his determination, of a will that could not be swayed. They spoke of the danger of his pride.

"I have known such Men before," Saruman had said once. "They may be great or terrible, for neither good nor evil counselors can bend them, when their minds are set."

Gandalf had replied, "Then we must hope for the best. I too have known them, for good and ill. Too often it is the folly of the wise to disdain the counsels of humbler men."

Those words had stayed with Denethor, until at length he had come to wonder whether he had been meant to overhear them. But they had not changed him. He had never seen any reason why a man should bend.

Now, as their steps drew nearer to the outer door, Gandalf slowed his pace. At last, he spoke. His words were not sharp or probing as Denethor had expected, however, but easy and courteous, as those of friend speaking to friend.

"You may have heard that I am leaving the City soon, Lord Denethor," he said. "Sooner, indeed, than I had intended. On the morrow I will ride out with Thorongil, but my way is far into the North. I have spoken with your father. I cannot tell how long it may be before my travels will bring me back to Minas Tirith."

"So it has ever been with you, Mithrandir," observed Denethor, echoing the wizard's courtesy with an effort. "The Gray Pilgrim coming and going, but abiding never. Your return will be welcome, whenever it may chance."

"And yet there is little hope that even then I shall have leisure to speak with you of other things than war."

Denethor allowed Gandalf to bring their steps to a halt at some distance from the end of the corridor. He eyed the wizard carefully. "I infer that there is something else of which you would speak."

"There are many things, Lord Denethor. But my time is pressing, and yours no less, and some things are better left unsaid than said in haste. Others, I must make the time to say. Will you suffer me to leave you with a word of counsel?"

Denethor did not answer, but waited, leaning with sober patience against his staff. This was more the sort of conversation he had expected.

"Your father is a wise man," began Gandalf. Denethor interrupted sharply:

"I know it."

"I have no doubt that you do. But you must know also that all wisdom has its limits."

Gandalf glanced back toward the Hall, as if to be certain that the inner door was still closed, before going on. "I need not tell you, Denethor, that these days are dark, and growing darker. In the short time of his reign, Ecthelion has already far surpassed Turgon as a Steward. The war has pressed and driven him. In the years to come, I fear, it will drive harder yet, and it may be that you will find yourself one day the heir to a city upon the brink of its doom. Ecthelion knows this. It is his hope to prepare you for that day."

The wizard fixed Denethor with his gaze again, far-seeing but gentle. "Know, Denethor, that if your father is cold in the wake of your successes, and spurs your ambition with his disregard, it is with a mind to harden you against even colder and more thankless victories. Have faith in him. His is not the method I should have advised, but I feel you would profit from understanding him."

Denethor said coolly, "I have always understood him."

It was a reply that would bear no objection, and in answer Gandalf merely sighed, as one who perceives that his effort has been in vain. Denethor went on in a lowered voice.

"My Lord Mithrandir, you see much to which other men are blind, but you do not see all; nor have I lived these thirty years with closed eyes. I know the reasons for my father's ways. Some are well meant, others less so, I deem; but his motives are of little consequence to me, so long as what is done is to Gondor's greater advantage. I have no need of his lessons in humility and forbearance. I am in the service of the City. I will always do what is right in the name of my people, at whatever price, and neither love of praise nor fear of blame will ever turn me."

"Such a promise may be nobly made," Gandalf said, "and earnestly pursued. But not all paths are straight or clear, and even the surest guide may go astray when night falls. You will walk many days in darkness, I foresee. Can you know that you will never lose your way?"

"No more than you. But I know that he who distrusts his own wisdom can achieve nothing. And I have never strayed yet."

Gandalf's gray eyes flickered with somber doubt.

"Then I will say no more."

As they resumed their steps toward the outer door, Denethor glanced sideways at the wizard, feeling that a shadow seemed to have fallen between them. He smiled a thin, wry smile.

"Your trust in me is less than mine in you, I fear," he observed. "Yet we are much the same, you and I, careful and immovable in our intuition. It is only because my father trusts you that you desire my faith in him. Had he opposed your counsel, would you not have turned to me in his stead? Would you not have tried whether some seed of your wisdom might take root in the heart of one whose influence would be felt? I know your ways also, Mithrandir. The meddling of the Gray Pilgrim is well known, if perhaps it, too, is well meant."

It was Gandalf this time who said nothing. Denethor paused at the door.

"Be content, then," he said, "for your will has prevailed. Tomorrow a host of my men sail north. You know as well as I that Gondor cannot afford to falter on Cair Andros, and I would not have stood by to see the isle's recovery charged to the hands of any captain unequal to the commission. But you need fear no dissent from me. I send Thorongil gladly."

This, at least, seemed to afford Gandalf some appeasement.

"Thorongil will be pleased to know it," he said.

The doors to the courtyard swung slowly open at the touch of Denethor's staff, and the two men stepped out into the sunlight.

"I would be much surprised, Mithrandir, if he did not know it already."

In the morning, Aragorn departed, and the Steward watched him go from the wall of the Citadel. Denethor watched as well, looking down to the fields and the distant specks of soldiers in formation, seven hundred feet below. The wind was high and fought to free his hair from its binding, and his tunic fluttered against his bandages. He breathed deeply, pulling the chill into his lungs, taking in the open sky.

Standing there between the wind and stone, he felt that he saw clearly for the first time. Something in him had changed.

He had come down from the Tower at first light, and in the courtyard, Aragorn had bowed to him before descending. That pang had struck him again, drawing taut in his breast; an indefinable ache, like a memory whose form has been forgotten. He should have bowed too, in his turn, or nodded, or done nothing; but he could not. He had chafed at that formality, and had offered his hand: and Aragorn had clasped it—clasped it with such a smile, a smile of sudden trust where doubt had lingered, that Denethor had nearly forgotten to let go.

At that moment, he had come to understand what he had so often heard told, but never quite believed. There was also power in submission.

He was a proud man by nature, yet he saw now, as he had never done before, that there was no disparity in pride and deference, no contradiction in dignity and humility. He had accepted his father's judgment without a word of protest; and that was dignity. He had accepted Aragorn, with all his secrets. On the Pelennor far below, this mysterious captain rode out: a Ranger in an overmended cloak and boots no polish could shine, trailing a host of Gondor's sturdy warriors behind him like a banner. And that was dignity too.

It was not a dignity of stoic resignation, nor of stifled impotent fury. It was the calm, honest dignity of a man realizing, perhaps indeed for the first time in his life, that the burden of his people did not rest on his own shoulders alone. That it was arrogance to try to bear it alone.

He felt lighter somehow. The shadow still loomed in the East, still crept outward, little by little, like some terrible shroud being drawn over all the world; but its weight seemed less. It would have been too much to say that he felt at ease; the most that was admissible for him was a wary and ephemeral sort of comfort, a timid little fire sparked in the heart of winter. But he welcomed it, such as it was, and he looked out from the Citadel wall with a pride that, for once, was not only for himself.

The Steward must have noticed his expression, because after a while he broke the silence to say to his son, "You seem to admire him."

Denethor's eyes still followed the departing soldiers.  _Admire_  was, to his mind, a strong word for the feeling; but he let that pass. He replied, "I might have said the same of you, my lord."

Ecthelion looked at him, not quite warmly, but not coldly, either. "We have at least this one thing in common, then," he said: a joke that rang a little too sincere.

"Yes. The best interests of Gondor."

At that, Ecthelion emitted a short sound that might have been a laugh. He turned from the wall to go back to the Tower, and as he went, he cuffed Denethor fondly on the shoulder. It was as close as he had ever come to an apology.

Denethor made no response, but remained where he was, looking down through the wind.


End file.
